Alex Broadbent

I am Professor of Philosophy of Science at Durham University, where I direct the Centre for Philosophy of Epidemiology, Medicine, and Public Health, a joint enterprise between Durham’s Institute for Medical Humanities and the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Johannesburg, where I am also a Visiting Professor. My research sits at the intersection of philosophy of science, epidemiology, medicine and public health, with a particular focus on evidence, causation, scientific disagreement and the role of expertise in policy and law.

My books include Philosophy of Epidemiology (2013), Philosophy for Graduate Students (2016), Philosophy of Medicine (2019), and Power, Knowledge, and Covid-19: The Making of a Scientific Orthodoxy (2026, with Pieter Streicher). I have also edited The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health (2023, with Sridhar Venkatapuram) and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Medicine (2025). My work ranges broadly across philosophy of science, medicine and public health, and more generally across the uses of science and the humanities in society.